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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23182255">Tony</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/happybeans/pseuds/happybeans'>happybeans</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, I made Tony a sexual abuse/rape survivor just because I could, Nothing is explicit but note that rape is discussed within this fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:08:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,886</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23182255</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/happybeans/pseuds/happybeans</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony recounts his #MeToo story and others related to it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tony</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>IIIIIIII'm not sure what this is. I was inspired to write some Tony Stark, and I started thinking, what if he was a sexual abuse victim too? I don't know, man. This story's a little weird and not like what I usually write (much prose-ier with like 5% dialogue), but I kinda vibe with it. As always, make sure you keep yourselves safe. This story shows vague and non-explicit scenes of rape/implied rape and all-around sexual mistreatment of a minor. My feelings won't be hurt if you pass on this one.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’s eight years-old. </p>
<p>The service ladies are cleaning the bathroom closest to his room, so when he sets down his action figures, pushes the math workbook he’s been ignoring to the side, he cracks the door to his parents’ room. He knows that they’re gone for the weekend, won’t be back from Cozumel until Monday, a whole three days from now, but he still hesitates, remembering his father’s warnings to “Stay away from our room, Anthony.”</p>
<p>But he scoffs at himself. He’s being dumb. His parents aren’t even home, and it’s not like the service ladies will rat him out. They love him. And anyways, he’s not snooping. He just has to pee, and what’s the point in walking all the way downstairs when there’s a perfectly acceptable bathroom right here.</p>
<p>He pushes the door the rest of the way open, the hallway light filtering in a tilted trapezoid of gold to replace the curtained room of dark.</p>
<p>He tiptoes in, creeping beyond the threshold and pulling the door until it’s nearly shut behind him, only allowing in a small sliver of light.</p>
<p>Socked feet making silent footsteps on the glossy hardwood floor, he glides towards the darkened doorway which he knows leads to the bathroom from the few times he remembers being in here.</p>
<p>He flicks on the light and turns the door handle so that he can noiselessly push the door closed then sets to doing his business.</p>
<p>It’s as he moves to flush the toilet that he notices a rack of magazines set neatly to the side of it, and, with a quick glance behind him, even though, dummy, there’s obviously no one there, he zips himself up and leans down to flip through them.</p>
<p>Some of them, he recognizes. <em> The Times </em> , a <em> National Geographic </em> he’s seen his mother browse through from her chair in the lounge, a chemistry journal his father has him read through some Sunday mornings. Others he’s never seen before, though their covers are fairly self-explanatory, showing mixtures of numbers (mathematical journals) or images of the brain (general science). </p>
<p>But one of them… He holds his breath as he pulls it out. This one’s different from the others, and before he’s even opened it, a part of him knows it’s something he’s not supposed to see, something his father’s nose would wrinkle and eyes would glare over. </p>
<p>Tony sets down the lid of the toilet, sitting in his trousers on top and opening up the magazine.</p>
<p>Unlike the others, inside of which he knows are mostly words, there are hardly any words at all inside this one; it’s mostly pictures, pictures of sandy beaches and orange sunsets and women with their bikini tops off. It makes Tony’s eyes widen and his hands tighten.</p>
<p>It makes his stomach feel different, anticipation and nervousness and something he can’t quite identify, not yet, pooling inside of it.</p>
<p>This is something he wasn’t supposed to see, something he’s not sure he wants to see. Something that he can’t comprehend besides the gravity of it, but he looks and looks and turns the page until he’s staring at the back cover. </p>
<p>Then, automatically, he gets up, settles the magazine back in its spot amongst the others, making certain that it’s just as he found it before flushing the toilet and walking back to his room to resume playing with his action figures.</p>
<p>When his parents return home, neither of them are any the wiser. But when he looks at his father, shakes his hand to welcome him back from his trip, Tony blinks and sees a woman from the magazine.</p>
<p>Then he goes and picks up his math workbook.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s eleven years-old, and his room is directly across from his parents’. </p>
<p>He rolls over to face the wall, eyes wide open but hands covering his ears. He’s not stupid; he knows that the knocking and slapping and singing means sex.</p>
<p>And he knows that his mother is away, visiting Aunt Lucia. </p>
<p>But more than anything, he knows that if he hums while his hands are over his ears, he won't be able to hear any of it, won’t have to feel the knot in his stomach, and, when he wakes up in the morning, he has no proof that it’s happened anyway. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s thirteen years-old when Anna approaches him after Jarvis has left for the store.</p>
<p>She’s one of the new cleaners, only here on her third month after replacing Jannah, who has a family of her own now.</p>
<p>Tony’s working on homework in the upstairs library—advanced calculus, a course five years above his grade level yet still as easy as breathing—when Anna enters silently, closing the door behind her.</p>
<p>Tony hardly even notices her until she interrupts him, saying, “That’s calculus, isn’t it? You’re a smart cookie, huh?”</p>
<p>She’s patronizing him. Tony doesn’t bother responding, finishing the last question on the sheet. He flips the page back to the front to check it over—a redundant and unnecessary time-waste which he undertakes if only to be absolutely, one-hundred-percent certain before his father looks at the paper—but he tilts his head when Anna continues:</p>
<p>“Some of the other girls told me you’re skipping high school, going straight to college next year.”</p>
<p>It’s a statement, but one with an implied question.</p>
<p>He doesn’t look up from his work, but he takes pity on her and provides her with an answer: “Yeah.”</p>
<p>She works her way closer to him, he notices, dusting the bookshelves just to the side of him then commenting: “You’ll miss out on a lot.”</p>
<p>He’s not sure why she’s still talking to him. Still, as he flips the sheet over to the other side, he says, “Not really. I’ve already learned all that I need to know.”</p>
<p>“Honey,” she says, “there’s more to high school than just classes.”</p>
<p>He looks over to her finally, taking in her clean-braided hair, her well-ironed uniform, and her bright-red lipstick which wraps around a closed-lipped smile.</p>
<p>Anna steps forward, setting her feather duster on the desk beside his homework. </p>
<p>“You ever kissed a girl before, Anthony?”</p>
<p>“Tony,” he corrects, even as his face colors red.</p>
<p>“Tony,” she agrees as she rests half-sitting on the side of the desk. “You know, college will be a lot harder for you if you don’t even know how to kiss.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t even reprimand her for interrupting him or for putting her butt on the desk, because as much as he’s tried not to think about it, he’s not an idiot; he knows that a barely-teenager will have to work doubly-hard to be accepted by his college-aged peers.</p>
<p>“If you want, I could show you how.”</p>
<p>His mouth parts, caught off-guard. Truthfully, he’s never kissed someone before. Not for lack of offers, but rather because he’s had no desire to interact with, let alone kiss, one of his more juvenile classmates.</p>
<p>He looks over Anna again. She’s taller than him, though he knows she’s not very tall, and, while she’s petite, her standard cleaner’s dress suits the shape of her body well. </p>
<p>She meets his eye from the side of hers, ruby-red smile natural on her face, yet feeling as though it’s meant personally for him.</p>
<p>He nods, still blushing, and her smile stretches wider before she comes closer.</p>
<p>After, he can’t hold back his own smile, even as he finishes his work and leaves from the room, catching her wink on the way out.</p>
<p>He shuts himself into his room, feeling as though he’s found himself in a dream, only tethered to the knowledge that this is real by the nervous tightness in his chest.</p>
<p>He gets lots of practice with Anna over the next few months leading up to his transfer to MIT, and while he knows it isn’t normal, he also is keenly aware that he’s lightyears ahead of his peers, and that, really, this is his most logical option. He’s too mature for anyone his age.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s fifteen years-old, and this is not the first party he’s been at, nor will it be the last. </p>
<p>College parties are different from the galas and events his father brought him to, growing up. There’s no Armani, nothing designer of any kind, and the weird, giddy feeling of wearing a T-shirt and jeans anywhere public takes a long while to settle down.</p>
<p>Whiskey and scotch are replaced with cheap beer and vodka. The three-course meal becomes pizza and beer pong.</p>
<p>Perhaps most notably is the crowd. Heavy, wall-shaking base thumping sets the tone for a night of shouting to be heard, of screaming and cheering and acting rambunctious, simply for the purpose of being rambunctious. </p>
<p>Tony’s used to the choreographed waltz of upper-class galas. The wild street dance of a college party? That, he’s still new at. </p>
<p>Yet he loves it all the same.</p>
<p>He’s settled on a lumpy, old couch, sandwiched between an upper-classmen couple and a gorgeous brunette with pink eye-shadow and floral perfume. </p>
<p>When she offers it to him, Tony accepts the frosty bottle of beer. Then the next one. And the next one after that.</p>
<p>He loses track, settled back and chatting with the brunette, the beer disgusting but the taste slowly growing on him.</p>
<p>Time begins to blur, sounds and smells whipping around him. He laughs. She takes his hand. She pulls him up, saying they’ll talk more upstairs, where it’s quieter.</p>
<p>Tony’s not dense. He knows the implications, knows what he’s being led to.</p>
<p>She practically carries him up the stairs.</p>
<p>He falls sideways, heavy, on the bed.</p>
<p>Next thing he knows, he’s on his back, and she’s pawing at his pants. He lifts a hand, but it falls back down.</p>
<p>The room is shifting. Even his own thoughts are wobbly, here and there and not quite coherent. </p>
<p>He blinks, and she’s on top of him. He’s in the room, then he’s out of it. He blinks, and her head is thrown back, and he tells himself it’s sexy that she’s doing all the work for him. </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter that his hands are too heavy to lift, that every blink shoots him forward in time. He wants this. She’s beautiful, and he’s practically an adult anyway.</p>
<p>He blinks and it’s morning.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s seventeen, and he’s accepted drinks from strangers all his life. </p>
<p>He’s a dumbass, and he learns the hard way why Rhodey always warns him not to.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s twenty-two, and everything after the second pill becomes blank space in his memory.</p>
<p>He wakes up alone and sticky and sore in all the wrong places.</p>
<p>The hole in his stomach is due to hunger, nothing more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s twenty-six, and the model’s perfume leaves him choking for breath. </p>
<p>He throws her out then locks himself in his lab, laughing it off. Telling himself it’s because it was cheap perfume anyway. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’s older than he’d care to admit, and suddenly it’s not just himself anymore.</p>
<p>He’s got friends and Pepper and an idealistic, ball-of-energy of a teenager.</p>
<p>Then one day, that teenager tells him some awful things. And between thoughts of homicide and of centered breathing, he thinks about all of this.</p>
<p>Peter’s face is tear-streaked, and his hands are ripping holes into a pillow.</p>
<p>Tony’s kid feels alone. </p>
<p>Tony takes a deep breath. And this is what he tells him. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And that's that. I'll try to think up something more wholesome for our boys in my next story, lol.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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